A Rather Cute Meet-Cute
by sunniebelle
Summary: Rose Tyler didn't realize anything was missing from her life until a chance meeting in a cloud of white.


Rose Tyler couldn't believe what a fool she had just made of herself. Her focus had been entirely on worrying over her exam the next day and not on where she was going. It was little wonder that her foot had caught on the next to last step at the top of the stairs, causing her to fall forward in a rather undignified way. On instinct, she let go of the tote bags full of groceries, freeing her hands in an attempt to ward off a face plant into the concrete.

What Rose hadn't seen was the man that had been directly in front of her and was now lying beneath her on the third-story landing.

She tried to make her brain catch up with what had happened and why she found herself staring at a rather handsome man. She was finding it difficult to think about anything else though while looking into his face. Her eyes took in wonderfully curly, medium-length brown hair, the most gorgeous pair of blue eyes, an impressive jawline and luscious-looking lips.

Little specks of white, suddenly appearing on his face and hair and all around them, made her realize that when she dropped her groceries, her bag of flour had burst creating a cloud that was slowly settling over them like a heavy snowfall.

With the dawning realization—and slight horror—of what had happened, she hastily apologized and rolled to the side, trying to get off him without causing any more flour to fall into his face or on his dark grey suit, both of which were now specked with white flour. She felt her face going red from embarrassment.

"No apology necessary, my dear. I am thankful I was able to break your fall. I am afraid concrete is a rather unforgiving surface to land on." He scrambled to his feet in one smooth move and bent over to help her up. Unfortunately, the position allowed a good portion of the flour in his hair to now dump into her previously clean face and it was he that was apologizing.

As they both stared at their now equally white complexions, laughter bubbled up from their throats and they soon found themselves in hysterics, coughing a bit from the flour.

Once their laughter died down he extended his hand. "I'm Doctor John Smith, from 3G. May I help you with your groceries Miss…?" He left his question open so she could supply her name, though she was temporarily distracted by the deep, melodic and velvety tone of his voice and realized with a start that she was staring at him.

Shaking herself free of her stupor, she shook his waiting hand and said, "Rose. My name's Rose Tyler. I'm in 5C. And no, thank you, but I think I've imposed on you enough by dumping flour all over you."

She wasn't sure why, when their hands released, she felt almost bereft of the loss of his warm palm against hers. She really had to get it together. Her brain finally began working once again, her eyes going wide as she realized exactly what was now floating in the air around them.

"Oh, bugger. My flour! I'm gonna have to go get more. I'm going barmy." she said aloud, whilst internally berating herself.

He stared at her a minute. "If you don't mind my asking, what kind of flour was it?"

Making a mental list of all she had to do, she answered without thinking about it as she bent over to pick up the items that had fallen out of her tote bag. "Plain flour. I'm gonna have to go down the grocers again."

"If you want, I can save you the trip. I have an unopened bag of plain flour that will not be used any time soon, I assure you. I can meet you back here or at your door if you like in, say, 15 minutes?"

She paused for a moment and then stood staring at him like he had two heads. "I knock you on your bum and dump flour all over you and you want to give me a bag of your own flour to save me a run down the grocers?" she asked incredulously.

"Yes." A lift of his eyebrows and a slight smile caused his blue eyes, sparkling in merriment, to be all the more distracting.

She considered all she still needed to get done and knew that she could replace his flour at another time. And accepting his generous offer had absolutely nothing to do with the possibility of seeing this man again, she told herself.

"Well, thank you, Doctor Smith. I'll replace it as soon as I can. And I promise next time I won't shower you in it." They both smiled and a few moments later, went their separate ways.

Roughly fifteen minutes later, after having changed and brushed all the flour out of her hair, she answered a knock at her door to find the handsome Doctor John Smith also changed and free of flour, except the bag in his hand.

If she had found him handsome in a suit before, she found him downright gorgeous now in a dark green cable-knit sweater and khaki trousers. She thought the dark green did amazing things for bringing out the blue of his eyes. His freshly brushed hair made her fingers itch to run through the wavy curls. Rose mentally shook herself, wondering briefly if she had hit her head and caused a short circuit in her brain.

After a moment's thought on the wisdom of it, she stepped back to allow him entrance, an action he obviously hadn't been expecting, if his eyebrows raising were any indication. He stepped into the foyer, his eyes sweeping her sparsely decorated living room as she shut the door, then he turned to her and handed over the flour.

"Here you are, Rose Tyler. One five pound bag of plain flour, as promised."

"Thank you very much. You really didn't have to." Not trusting herself to hold the bag, afraid of another flour disaster, she walked to her kitchen to set it with her other baking ingredients.

She turned to him when he started speaking and found him to be standing quite close. "Pardon my rudeness for asking, but why is this flour so important to you?"

"Oh, um, well," she stammered for a minute, distracted by the wonderful sandalwood and cinnamon-like smell coming from him. "My final exam at Uni is tomorrow and I _know_ that I know the material, but if I try and cram in more studying, I'll make myself believe I _don't_ know the material, so I decided to keep myself busy by baking, even though I've already made like three different types of cookies, it's putting my nervous energy to work. Not to mention my little brother loves my cookies and will gladly take them off my hand." She suddenly stopped talking, realized what all she had said while rambling and felt her face go warm.

He smiled widely, showing off a row of perfectly white teeth. "I'm very happy I was able to provide you with such a vital ingredient. I will leave you to your project and wish you the best in your baking endeavors and your exam." He said with a slight bow, turning toward the front door, but suddenly turned just before reaching the entryway.

"I wonder, in celebration of what I expect will be a happy occasion tomorrow, would you consider joining me for dinner?" He asked, his smooth voice masking the nervousness that was showing in his eyes.

She was caught a bit off guard by the invitation, though she was secretly very pleased. She smiled wryly as she said, "I don't know whether it will be a happy occasion or not, I might bollocks everything up and flunk my exam."

"Positive thoughts, Rose! You must think positive!" he said exuberantly, his smile and energy contagious.

Not knowing why, but realizing she couldn't pass up the opportunity to meet this fascinating man again, she said, "Yes, Doctor Smith, I would like that," a pleased smile on her face.

"Excellent!" Then he frowned slightly. "And, please, call me John or Doctor, but Doctor Smith is too…proper."

Turning a teasing, tongue-touched smile on him she said, "Alright, Doctor." She felt a little shiver go down her spine as his eyes traveled to watch her mouth before quickly moving back to her eyes, his own smile widening.

"I shall pick you up at your door at seven?" he asked.

She nodded and moved with him to the door, smiling to herself as she closed it. Suddenly she was no longer nervous about her exam, but was instead very excited about tomorrow night. She looked very forward to seeing this mysterious Doctor again, who had entered her life in a cloud of white and effortlessly swept her off her feet.


End file.
